(A wax version of Gollum from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ sits on display at the Comic-Con International Convention being held at the San Diego Convention Center July 18, 2003 in San Diego, California. Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

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Stephanie Curtis has produced events, daily news shows, documentaries, conferences and call-ins for MPR News. She also was among the pioneering producers who launched The Current. You can hear her discuss movies every Thursday on The Cube Critics.

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I think there is natural charisma, which you can’t do much to affect. And there is ‘performance’ charisma, which I suspect is what will be discussed in the show. That is, a controllable combo of physical cues, self-confidence, openness, warmth projection, etc.

Personally, I’m an introvert whose everyday ‘projection’ of personality is quite uncharismatic. However, many of my family have inherited charismatic ‘performance’-type traits, and the more happy, comfortable, and interested I am, the more I project that type of charisma. It shocks me how strongly people will respond to me in those situations. I’m not being ‘artificial’; that really is my personality under very specific conditions, but it can feel like I’ve fooled them into thinking I’m really cool and outgoing, etc., when in reality, I don’t often interact that way with people and under normal conditions, they’d likely find me bland and boring.